Hombres Armados Movie Review 1997

Fiercely independent filmmaker John Sayles' men with guns are not characters; they're an inevitable force like time or the weather that the characters have learned to accept. Set in a fictional Latin American country, story follows a well-to-do physician (Luppi) who trains doctors to work in the countryside among the local Mayan Indians. What he doesn't realize is that a civil war is engulfing his country, the Indians are practically enslaved, and his students have been murdered by the government that trained them. He picks up a ragged bunch of stragglers whose lives have been shattered by ever-present soldiers from either side of the war. Together they trudge through the jungle, searching for a place devoid of war or politics. Sayles based his idea on the 36-year-long civil war in Guatemala, which began in 1960. Spanish with subtitles.

Distribution

Sony Pictures Home Video, Sony Pictures Plz., 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232, Phone: (310)244-7306, Fax: (310)280-2485, URL: http://www.spe.sony.com, Remarks: Formerly Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment

Available on VHS
Running time 128 minutes.

Cast and Crew

Genres

War, General, Central America, Doctors & Nurses, Politics, Anti-War War Movies

Screenplay

John Sayles

Cast

Federico Luppi, Damian Delgado, Dan Rivera Gonzalez, Tania Cruz, Damian Alcazar, Iguandili Lopez, Nandi Luna Ramirez, Rafael De Quevedo, Mandy Patinkin, Kathryn Grody, Roberto Sosa

Cinematography

Slawomir Idziak

Director

John Sayles

Music

Mason Daring

Producer

Maggie Renzi, Sony Pictures Classics